Hunting Season

Hunting Season is here, and I'm not talking about looking for new problems in the hills. Ohio's hunting season as been in full swing for a while now, however there is one week a year that catches my attention a little more then others. That week is referred to a "Deer Gun Week" around here, it lasts from November 30th through December 6th. This is the only week that Hunters are permitted to hunt deer with a gun, besides a couple special weekends.

I want to let people know about this Deer Gun Week due to the affect that it has on the local climbing. Several of the areas that are mentioned in this blog and that allow climbing are also open to hunters during the above mentioned dates. So be careful if your out and about in the woods this week, make sure to wear bright colors and beware of your surroundings.

Even in areas as such as the Trailer Park I have seen hunters. The best places to climb during this week would probably be COAD and Witches.

Below is some info on Ohio's Hunting from ODNR' page.

Deer Zones and Bag Limits
	Deer Permit ($24)			Antlerless Deer Permit ($15)
Zone	Opening Date	Closing Date	Limit	Opening Date	Closing Date	Limit	Total
A	Sept 26, 2009	Feb 7, 2010	1	Sept 26, 2009	Nov 29, 2009	1	2
B	Sept 26, 2009	Feb 7, 2010	2	Sept 26, 2009	Nov 29, 2009	2	4
C	Sept 26, 2009	Feb 7, 2010	3	Sept 26, 2009	Dec 6, 2009	3	6

Deer Hunting Hours

Archery season hours are 1/2 hour before sunrise to 1/2 hour after sunset.

Hours for deer hunting are 1/2 hour before sunrise to sunset for the Youth Deer Gun Season, Deer Gun Season, the Early Muzzleloader Season, and Statewide Muzzleloader Season.

09-2010 Hunting Season Dates and Bag Limits

SPECIES	OPENING DATE	CLOSING DATE	DAILY BAG
White-tailed Deer: Archery	September 26	February 7	Refer to Deer Hunting Section for details on zone and bag limits
White-tailed Deer: Early Muzzleloader Wildcat Hollow, Salt Fork Wildlife Area, Shawnee State Forest	October 19	October 24
White-tailed Deer: Youth Gun	November 21	November 22
White-tailed Deer: Gun	November 30	December 6
White-tailed Deer: Gun (extended)	December 19	December 20
White-tailed Deer: Muzzleloader	January 9	January 12
Wild Turkey: Fall	October 10	November 29	Refer to Turkey Hunting Section for details on seasonal bag limits
Wild Turkey: Spring
	April 19	May 16
Squirrel (gray, red, fox, black)	September 1	January 31	6
Mourning Dove	September 1 - Refer to Publication 298 or Small Game Section
Ruffed Grouse	October 10	January 31	2
Goose and Brant	Refer to Waterfowl Season Dates or refer to Publication 295 Click here to review all Waterfowl Season Information
Ducks, Coots, Mergansers and Canvasbacks	Refer to Waterfowl Season Dates or refer to Publication 295 Click here to review all Waterfowl Season Information
Cottontail Rabbit	November 6	February 28	4
Ringneck Pheasant	November 6	January 10	2 (cock pheasants only)
Bobwhite Quail	November 6	November 29	4
Fox, Raccoon, Skunk, Opossum, Weasel	November 10	January 31	No Limit
Crow Fri. Sat. Sun. Only	June 5, 2009	March 14, 2010	No Limit
Coyote	No closed season for hunting or trapping		No Limit
Wild boar	No closed season for hunting		No Limit
Groundhog	Closed during deer gun season only		No Limit

An Out-Of-Towners Guide To Athens Bouldering

Tim is working hard on putting together guides for all the different climbing areas in and around Athens, but after looking through the old post I realized there aren't any directions listed to get you to the bouldering in the first place, so I thought I would give some to get the folks from out of (and in) town started

Driving directions-  To access the bulk of Athens climbing there is an excellent trail network.  If it's your first time coming in to town,  I suggest you start with the COAD/Trailer Park Areas.  The trail head for these areas is located on East State Street.  If coming taking 33 East or West, follow the signs towards the State street exit. Once you reach East State Street, turn East towards Apple Bees, you should pass it on your right.  Continue following East State past a few car dealerships, shops, and restaurants (a few should be familiar from Dylan's post).  After passing through a few lights you will come to an intersection with Walmart and Burger King on your right, and The Ohio University Credit Union on your left.  From here you will turn left down a small street which I can't find the name of.  The Credit Union should now be on your right, and a small trailer park on your left.  Park at the end of the road at the  big blue and white barn.  The obvious trail in to the woods is called the Cucumber trail. 

Directions to the boulders-  Follow the cucumber trail in to the woods.  Please stay on the main trail not only because it is good ethics, but because this trail is on privately owned land, and we don't want to lose access!  Follow this trail until you reach a wooden foot bridge on your left.  To access COAD and the emerald boulder cross the footbridge and follow the trail left.  To access the trailer park boulders pass the bridge and continue on.  Along this trail you will pass the commitment area, the ravine area, the font area, the spirit area, and tons of other established problems.

Definitive guides coming soon, stay tuned...

Here is a map of the Athens trail network on which I marked the bouldering parking in red, along with a couple of the more condensed areas.  Hope this helps!

Trip Report: HP40, Triple Crown Event

This past weekend a large group of Ohioans traveled the 1400 miles to compete in the second leg of the Triple Crown event at Horse Pens 40. The Triple Crown is a series of three bouldering competitions spread across three boulderfields, and three states.
From the TC website
WHAT IS THE TRIPLE CROWN? The goal of the Triple Crown is twofold. First and foremost, the mission is to raise funds for two organizations dedicated to maintaining climbers' access: the Southeastern Climbers' Coalition and The Carolina Climbers' Coalition. These two organizations have been instrumental in the acquisition of land for the climbing community, in a region that is riddled with access issues. Secondly, this unique event will once again provide a tremendous opportunity for vendors to promote the sport of bouldering, which has quickly become the focus of the ever growing climbing community.
There were six of us that drove down from Athens and met up with three more from Athenians, three from c-bus, and three from the nasty. With our powers combined we created a force to be reckoned with.

We arrived on Friday afternoon to temps in the high 60's and a campsite that was awaiting our tents, thanks to the crew from C-bus. We started the night with introducing the first timers to the boulders of HP40, they were amazed at the concentration of this southern boulder destination. We all had an early night in preparation for the full day of climbing we were committed to in the morning.

Awoken to the commotion of climbers beginning their morning routines and smell of coffee was a
pleasant start to the day. We all signed in at registration and picked up or event shirts, free swag, and comp guide books. They gathered everyone under the pavilion, went over the rules and unleashed the mob of 400+ into the boulder field. Dylan and I however decided to enter a new division the morning of. This new category was called star chaser; the idea was for us to compete by climbing the best problems in the entire field. This meant that instead of getting the points for difficulty we got the number of stars used to rate the problem. The competitor at the end of the day with the most stars was the winner. The problems could be as high as a three star classics or a pile of sand with no stars. Both Dylan and I attempt problems as hard as V5 for three stars. By the end of the day we were both spent and sore from the local classics. By then I had complete 56 problems for a total of 96 stars for 4th place.


Now there were some others in the group that managed to pull off a better day. Conan from C-bus had planned out his day a month in advance. He had a list of problems he had sent before, along with a few new ones to try and walked away with a score of 4322 to secure 2nd place. Right on his heels was another friend Eric with 4298 for third. After the second event, Conan sits in first place overall for mens intermediate, and Eric in 4th. Good work guys!

Shane, also from A-town, brought his A game along for the 9 hour car ride. He managed to rack up 2139 which was only good enough for third place, however he is sitting pretty going into the final event with 225 point lead over the guy in second place. That is a whole extra problem for his category, beginner mens.



So that being said we all have some training to do for the next event to hold our spots or advance for a win.

A write up from Dead Point Magazine can be found here. Along with a Video here, which has a couple of the Ohio crew in it.

Over all Triple Crown standings can be found here.

We have one month to get ready for our next leg of the series at Little Rock City aka Stone Fort.

Until then...

Trip Report: Emerald Send Fest

I'm just going to put this statement out there:
Emerald boulder may offer the best concentration of high quality, moderate boulder problems in Athens.
I've found one of my new favorites: "Discombobulation" V5

Anyway, last week Louis, Gunnar, Joey, Mike, Carrie and I went out for a late afternoon session. We had a good ol’ time yellin at each other and figuring out beta. Louis filled his score card by sending everything but “Crystal Shard,” and I managed to get yet a couple more new sends in before I leave town.

We started out the session with the classic slab “Snake Eyes.” Smeary feet, slopey holds and a balancy dead point make this line super fun.

After the send train left the station we moved on to “Barbs” or “Barbed Wire.” Now Louis and I tried this last spring with no luck. If I had to explain the situation last spring there would be three factors that lead to our demise: Low Traffic, Humidity and Weak Sauce. Last spring it felt like we were trying to mantle on sand castle slopers.

Regardless, Louis and I made short work of the super fun V4 this time around.

Joey in awe of the jewel

Here's a slide show of "Barbed Wire:"

Discombobulation is an awesome line. As stated before, it may be my favorite Athens 5. The creative beta and smeary feet really brought the group together trying to solve this problem. Start with high feet and manipulate the balancy slab smears and obvious holds to get purchase on the slopey top out. Lore has it that no one under 5’10 has sent it!

Emerald Arete was quickly dispatched by Louis on this outing and he has for sure been crushing lately. His laid back attitude and climbing psych only compliment his superb spotting skillz. Spoons not forks!

We had a beautifully perfect fall day with the afternoon sun petering out leaving us with crisp send temps. It’s always a good session when a group of motivated individuals sets forth on an epic senday. So get out there and make your fingers bleed, spend a day in the woods enjoying the gorgeous east coast forests and take it all in because it’s going to be winter soon.

Climbing Shoes and Sizing

Climbing Shoes and Sizing:

The idea with this post is for users to share the climbing shoes they have owned and the size of those shoes. That away fellow climbers can view their list and use it to to help choose an appropriate sizes when purchasing new shoes. A street shoe or boot listed for reference is great too.

Leave your list as a comment for everyone to see.

Below are links to some popular shoe manufactures.
Five Ten
La Sportiva
Evolve
Mad Rock
Scrapa
Mammut


Comment Model:
Make, Model, Size (comment about the fit)

ex: Five Ten, Jet 7, 9 (tight as hell)

Athens Bouldering Projects

Just like any other climbing area, the Athens Ohio climbing and bouldering scene has its fare share of projects and unrepeated problems. Today we are going to share a few of these projects with you.

Nelsonville Area:

First up. The projects located behind Hocking College, which are located on campus property. Two steep roof lines that lead to easier exit mantels. The one pictured below is a series of overhanging good crimps that lead to a slopey half pad edge crimp crux section. The second is also a steep roof to large sloper rail, that might then yield a dnyo to the finish. For access directions leave a comment with your email address and we will send them to you. Hocking has some minor steps you have to take to climb here.




Next up is the "Arching Nemesis" project at the Land of Super Heros. This small area located in Wayne National Forest near Nelsonville is composed of just two boulders, the Super Hero boulder and the Sidekick Boulder. The the project is on a 20-25 foot tall overhanging arete that leads to a dicy exit onto the Superman Slab. Direction to come in a following post. You can also see it in this video. This area also contains potential for a few one move wonders of lesser quality

Trailer Park:

Tall and Proud, that is the game it these next two projects at the Trailer Park near the Commitment boulder, aka Boulder Cove. First is "Big Mamas" this it the beast of an arete that is featured in climbing magazine.(Justin Roth's) blog. This line climbs the left side of the arete to the top. Good holds lead to balancey and progressively harder climbing. Height, sketchy landing, bad weather and weaksauce have kept this one from being picked.

Next up at the Trailer Park is the Entrance roof located to the left of the trail as you go over the boardwalk just before you get to the commitment area. The "Flux Capacitor Project" climbs straight out the roof on decent holds, establish on the face and climb through crimps and the hold the looks like the flux capacitor from the "Back to the Future" movies. Battle out the slopers, underclings and dirty rock to the top. This is a high ball that see little traffic and is currently dirty.


Another new area at the trailer park is the Lions wall.
This area is mainly slabs until you reach the right most side near the rock house. This section of the wall is less featured and 15-20ft tall with half pad and smaller edges on the slightly overhanging face leading to the top. Not to much effort has been put into these projects, but they will go very soon.







COAD:

One of the remaining projects at COAD is a roof to overhanging Arete. This one has thwarted many attempts for a while. It is located on the upper tier at COAD. It sits the the left of "Too Small for Paws" and "The Crack". Stand up into a sandy/chossy start that leads to more solid crimps in a horizontal weakness. From the crimps make a dynamic move to the sloper dish, contiune right up the arete to the top, going left to crack system has been done. Sorry can't find any photos at this time.

Witches:

Witchs has a another tall blank arete that has seen some action. Dubbed the "Nientiendo Thumb Project" is the very first tall arete as you enter the area. Stand or sit and climb the arete. Rumors say that it has almost been sent on multiple ocassions but it still remains virgin.

Emerald:

A low start to Discombobulated remains open too. Same start as Crystal Shard Sit and Emerald and climb left along sloper to linkup with the stand of Discombulated. Not a pure line in its form, but still doable and hard.


This is not a complete list of Athens projects but a taste of what still remains to be sent. Also, sorry the directions are not posted for all of these areas. We are still working on the individual guides to each area. If you need directions in the meantime, leave a comment and we will shoot you back an email.

Now let see some of these projects get sent with these fall temperatures.

Be Safe and Climb Stong!

Trip Report: Witches

Hey yall,
Louis and I went out to Witches last week and got in a late afternoon session.

The (A) on the map denotes the approximate location of Witches

Setting sun and crisp temps made for the perfect send-fest. The chill of fall in Athens means many things to me, one of those things is wonderful friction. The other things have to do with getting drunk in spandex and a wig.

I'm telling you with all honesty, Athens sandstone is easy to palm in the fall. It's like cheating. Otherwise heinous top outs felt effortless, the classic "Witches Traverse" felt easier than picking up dudes at the bar and "Drews Arete" was actually feeling sendable (although I did not send). So after warming up on the warm up boulder, which doesn't really have that many good warm ups anymore thanks to the consistently inconsistent rock, we threw ourselves at a highball project that vindictively stayed a project.

As the sun started to disappear over the gorgeous Hocking River valley, Louis and I jumped on the V4 classic "50 Grit." An aesthetic vertical block with a lone sloping crimper dividing the 4 feet between start holds and sloping mantle. Unfortunately, I did not get any photos of us on "50 Grit," but I did get a snap shot of the block. Here's few photos from the day:

Warm up boulder Drew's Arete on right and Witches Traverse on left

Drew's Arete

Louis with the send

The Proj: Nintendo Thumb

50 Grit

Beautiful fall day

Here are some appropriate alliterations to accurately associate my appreciation for our awesome Athens afternoon:
The overall outing was outstanding.
Super solid sloper slappin'
Crazy crimpy cobble clobbering.
-Dylan